


How Empty They All Seemed Without You

by Lasgalendil



Series: It's Been A Long, Long Time [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Artist Steve Rogers, Boys In Love, Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes Feels, Finding Bucky, HYDRA Trash Party, Healing, Holocaust, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Revenge, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Up all night to get Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:45:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Bucky proves more difficult than Steve Rogers had imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094785) by [spitandvinegar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spitandvinegar/pseuds/spitandvinegar). 



> You'll never know how many dreams  
> I've dreamed about you  
> Or just how empty they all seemed without you  
> So kiss me once, then kiss me twice  
> Then kiss me once again  
> It's been a long, long time.
> 
> —It’s Been A Long, Long Time, 1945

Steve Rogers was no stranger to blank ceilings.  
  
He’d spent the better part of every winter in the hospital as a child. If it wasn’t the hospital it was his own bed at home, trapped, wheezing, staring up at the dingy ceiling and grey walls. Then there was the SSR, bed after bed after bed, staring up at yellow tiles, tent canvas, blank white paint while doctors and scientists ran their endless tests. Even after—after he woke from the ice, he’d spent three weeks in a laboratory as the United States Government tried (and failed) yet again to re-create the serum that had transformed him from a skinny kid in Brooklyn to the war’s greatest soldier.  
  
Three weeks. Three weeks of staring up at empty, white ceilings while waking. Three weeks of staring at up empty, white ceilings while struggling to sleep. And for all he was “Captain America”, for all he was “The First Avenger”, for all he was “The Greatest Hero from The Greatest Generation”…he felt like that sick, skinny kid from Brooklyn just struggling to breathe.  
  
But after three weeks he’d had enough, felt himself chafing, champing at the bit, he’d been asleep for seventy years, for God’s sake, and he just wanted to see the world the way it was, not filtered through the lens of what a team of half a dozen psychiatrists and historians considered “potentially triggering”.  
  
…Tony Stark had taken care of all of that. Stark Industries was the US’s largest weapons and military research and development (not to mention medical sciences) contractor, and what Stark wanted, Stark got. One simple phone call and Potts and Hill and Stark had shown up and waltzed him away.  
  
But for all he’d been through, Bucky’d had it worse. Steve had _volunteered_ for the SSR. Steve had been acclimated to hospitals, doctors, the long hours alone, a stranger’s clinical touch. Bucky had been captured. Bucky’d had no choice. Bucky had been—

  
  
[God, he should _not_ have read those files. But he felt he had to. Buck was his friend, for God’s sake. Stood by him through every stupid thing he’d ever done. He owed it to Buck to understand.]

  
Tortured. Brain-washed. Brutalized.  
  
Go on and say it, Steve. Bucky had been _raped_.  
  
He’d read the HYDRA files. The KGB records that Nat had unwillingly translated into English for him after he’d threatened to just use ‘this goggle translate thing I’ve read about’. Some of them were still in Zola’s own goddamned handwriting. Bucky Barnes had remembered him, threatened them with him, laughed in their faces how Steve Rogers would come for him, Steve Rogers would save him, Steve Rogers would kill them all and then some, had fought like hell to remember him, remembered Steve’s name longer even than his own…would cry out for him in the night even after he’d lost the waking words. But Zola’s serum worked. Bucky wasn’t _immune_ to pain, but he could tolerate it. Hell, even as a kid he could tolerate it, getting into scraps with bigger kids, outnumbered yet holding his own until he was bloodied but never beaten, holding candles to his skin just to impress Stevie, a party trick to burn away the hours sitting next to (or even in) his sick bed. But there were other ways to break a man. And break him they did.  
  
_Psychosexual torture_ , the files explained in neat, precise handwriting or emotionless typeface that obscured the horror of the words, _is an acceptable method to induce the Asset to heed. Indeed after many hours of experimentation it is even preferred._ And they recorded it. Of course they did, Steve thought bitterly, the Third Reich was organized, meticulous to a fault. They documented it. The whole thing. Every. Single. Goddamned encounter.  
  
…and the sickest thing was that Steve had looked up the Nuremberg Trials. More than half the doctors who recorded—encouraged, even—Bucky’s treatment had been pardoned for their testimonies against their higher-ups. Many had even gone back into medicine. Some had served nominal prison sentences…others received asylum in the United States. And some, Steve found with fire burning in his blood, were still alive and _free_.

  
[“Do something about it,” he’d raged at the World Security Council. “You do something about it or I. Will.”]

  
And many, many escaped altogether, disappeared to South America. Sam had called when they had been searching for Bucky, followed a lead down in Argentina. Some Perón rat had been found murdered in his villa.  
  
…Although _torn apart_ was a far more accurate description. Steve had read the coroner’s reports, heart dropping, stomach heaving, and the degree of brutalization the man had endured before dying had sounded gut-wrenchingly familiar. Bucky had found him. Bucky had killed him.

  
[Not Bucky. The Winter Soldier. Buck wouldn’t do a thing like that.]  
[Not for revenge.]  
[Not even for Steve.]

  
Karl Braun was a known HYDRA agent who’d collaborated with the KGB’s Red Room project before disappearing in the post-war confusion. He’d been stabbed to death with a blunt object. Upwards of three-hundred times. The force required to shove something so dull that deep through skin and muscle and bone—it just wasn’t humanly possible. Not without the super soldier serum. Not without the servos of a cybernetic arm. From the shattered glass recovered at the scene and buried in the skull, the police believed it to have been a—  
  
Well. Sam explained it was a sexual instrument. Used for. Well.

  
[And it had been used on Bucky.]  
[Of course it had.]  
[There wasn’t a sick, shameful thing they hadn’t done to him. Just to make him forget.]

  
A local HYDRA safe house in Buenos Aires had also been ‘visited’. SHIELD told him not to go in, that no good would come of it, but Bucky’d been there, Bucky’d been there only _hours_ before, and if his friend could—had to—endure this, then so could he.  
  
Blood. Bodies. Broken apart. Some shot neatly through the head, casually, almost an afterthought. Some eviscerated. Some skinned. Some mutilated past recognition as human.  
  
And on each, a list of their crimes.  
  
Steve understood, then. It wasn’t the carnage the SHIELD agents had thought to keep him from. It was the pain.

  
He made it lick up the piss in the chair when they shocked it.  
She watched them rape it and laughed when it cried.  
It had to suck him just to get water.  
She stuck a baton up inside it and shocked it until it said it liked it.  
He called it a dirty slut until it believed him.  
He made it beg for it before he raped it.

  
And worst of all was the litany of words scrawled in blood across the floors, the ceiling, the walls, a messy, child’s handwriting of _they knew they knew they knew._  
  
Not every HYDRA agent had been Bucky’s tormentor. Steve had been to _Nazi Germany_ , for God’s sake. He knew not every person fighting on the side of evil believed in it, agreed with it even—but they had known. Known about the slaughter of Jews, Romani, queers…known and did nothing. Not every HYDRA agent or asset had been directly involved with Bucky’s deprogramming. Perhaps they’d only been cowards, unwilling accomplices, felt threatened or coerced. But they had known, known and done nothing, and if Steve could find it in his heart to forgive them…well. The Winter Soldier couldn’t.

  
[And even Steve couldn’t blame him.]

  
“Still think he’s the sort of guy who needs saving?” Sam had asked him when his tears dried.  
“Now more than ever.”  
“What are you going to do when you find him, Cap?” Sam said. “I mean, how the hell—“  
“I’m working on it.”  
  
Steve didn’t know much about this sort of thing. He—he just couldn’t. He made himself read everything they’d done to Bucky. Made himself look at—see in person if he could—every single thing the Winter Soldier did to express his pain. He tried psychology manuals, learned that the Soldier’s use of ‘it’ was considered dissociation, depersonalization, derealization. For Steve, that was the worst part. That Bucky was free now. Free from HYDRA. Bucky could come to him, come home…but he didn’t, because deep down inside he still believed every single sick thing they’d told him.  
  
It nearly broke him.  
It’d been done to Bucky but it’d nearly broken him just _knowing._  
  
“You’ve got to stop this, Steve,” Nat said. “You’re his friend. You be there for him like that, let the doctors do the rest. You’re no good to him if you can’t function.”  
  
Bruce recommended antidepressants. Meditation. Better sleep hygiene. Sam let him throw himself into the search. Clint recommended taking out all his anger in sparring practice.

…Tony gave him a number to a sex line. Pepper had not been amused.  
  
Nat was right. Steve wasn’t a doctor. Didn't know how to help him heal. But goddamnit he was Bucky’s _friend_ , and he could be there for Bucky the way he’d been there for him the nights he couldn't breathe, the unending dark days stuck home alone with nothing but empty walls to keep him company, the grey ceiling staring back at him.  
  
Bucky would not wake to blank ceilings, empty walls. Nothing clinical. Nothing cold. Nothing that could possibly remind him of—  
  
Of that.  
  
Steve hadn’t painted in (ages, Nat had grinned) awhile. Didn’t stop him from ordering canvas (alright, so Pepper had handled the internet part of it) and water colors. Put up a mural of 1940’s New York above Bucky’s bed. Let him open his eyes to see something beautiful, see Steve’s familiar brushstrokes. Know he was home. He’d enlisted Pepper’s help, too, in decorating the room. Vintage artwork. Fabrics. Down to the texture of the sheets on Bucky’s bed. Anything, Goddamned anything to make his friend feel safe. Tony had even found a Philco radio-phonograph model 40-501p, exactly like the one they’d had in their cramped Brooklyn apartment that Buck had brought home that winter Steve lost to pneumonia, keep him company, keep his eyes from going bad in the dim light trying to read or draw all day, and Steve had sat down on the cold Stark Industry tiles unashamedly and cried like a kid.  
  
He’d made a home, a room, for Bucky. Comfortable enough for his boyhood friend. Secure enough to house The Winter Soldier.  
  
…now all he had to do was _find_ him.


	2. Chapter 2

Just hanging out with Cap was like something out of a dream.  
  
Here was Captain America. Captain America returned from the dead, Captain America sitting in his living room, Captain America drinking his beer, laughing at his jokes. Hell, Captain fucking America asking for—no, _needing_ —his help!  
  
So yeah. Sam wasn’t above admitting to himself that his new best friend was something out of his boyhood dreams, and half the time if he wasn’t careful he’d be fangirling instead of befriending him.  
  
But at the same time, it was the closest, starkest reality Sam had ever known. The oldest he’d ever felt. The dreams and innocence of childhood fell away, felt dirty, tainted in their innocence. That American Icon had been—still was—a living, breathing man. He’d had action figures, a fucking _Bucky Bear_ even, had enacted the adventures of Captain America and his Howling Commandos all over his bedroom, yard, school playground…hell, two tours, even. And in all that time he’d forgotten. Never realized how human his heroes really were. The Bucky Barnes who had fallen from nightstands, couches, slides and swing sets was the same man that Steve, that the World Security Council was chasing now. And the same hero who’d crashed a HYDRA plane under the ice, the Savior who’d died for all America was also his running buddy, came over on Fridays to play cards and try his best to get wasted while eating his weight in pizza and catching himself up on Star Wars. And for all the propaganda, for all the times he’d found courage under fire, comforted another grieving soldier with ‘what would Cap do’, nothing could prepare him for Steven Grant Rogers losing it during one of his sessions, saying how hard it all was, that he understood them all perfectly, that he thanked them for the words, words to say the feelings he had but couldn’t explain because to him the war was just three months ago it was still going on it’d be going on for another _seventy years_.  
  
To the world, the newscasters, the politicians and reporters, the kids and soldiers who stopped him on the street, the ones he always met with that same, patient smile—to them James Buchanan Barnes had been dead for the better part of a century. He’d never been real. He was only history.  
  
For Steve Rogers, it had only just happened. He’d never even had the chance to mourn.  
  
“You wanna talk, man?” Sam asked, handing Cap a beer.  
He shook his head.  
“It’s cool, man. Star Wars?”  
“Yeah,” Steve said. “You know what, I think I’d like that.”

* * *

It was all his fault, Sam knew.

  
His fault. Too worried about spoilers, about making sure Vader’s big reveal had its full effect, that Cap got the element of surprise he’d forgotten. Forgotten all about it. Of fucking course _The Empire Strikes Back_ was a shit idea full of fucking triggers.  
  
Son of a bitch. He should’ve known. Steve had been happy, engrossed, laying on his stomach on the floor in front of the tv, couch cushion bundled in his arms under his head, had laughed and gasped at all the right moments like a fucking kid—  
  
—and then. Then shit. Han Solo disappearing into carbonite. That block falling over and Lando leaning over it, close-up on the twisted features and extended hands and suddenly Steve just lost it, body wracked with sobs, curling into himself, moaning Barnes’ name.  
  
And—not for the first time—Sam wondered if there was more than speculation to the rumors that Barnes—that Cap—had been…They couldn’t’ve been out. Couldn’t’ve ever dreamed of being public. It was still another twenty-some years to Stonewall, another _seventy_ until marriage equality. If they were— _are_ , Sam caught himself—they couldn’t’ve risked the Army ever knowing. Hell, it’d been the fifties when Turing killed himself, and Steve had likely met the man.  
  
If it was true—any of it—well, it’d be one of the few deep, buried, personal things Steve still had. In their desperation for their hero America had dissected him and put him on display, created a new patriotic mythology as permeating as Washington’s. It was a well documented, Indisputable Historical Fact that Steven Grant Rogers "Captain America" had been devoted to James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes.  
  
…just how devoted, Sam wasn’t going to pry.    
  
And besides, it wasn’t the sort of thing you asked a guy who’d just got unfrozen four months ago and woke up expecting the fucking 1940’s and now found himself sobbing himself sick all over your carpet. He made a mental note to discretely tell Nat to back the fuck down. Steve was still raw and aching over it. He didn’t need the pressure of friends not-so-subtly shoving Sharon Carter on him to add to the hurt.  
  
He paused the movie. Let Steve cry it all out in a huddled mess on his floor.  
  
"You wanna talk, man?” Sam asked.  
Steve shook his head, still biting back tears. “I wanna finish it.”  
He didn’t bother with a patronizing ‘you sure’. This was Cap. You didn’t question his orders—even if and when they were more polite suggestions.  “It’s cool, man,” Sam pressed play on the remote. “I’m going to make us some more popcorn. I’ll just be over here.”  
  
_I’ll just be over here_. It wasn’t the end of the line, Sam knew. But it was a start.


	3. Chapter 3

The Asset Fell.

  
[The Asset fuckin’ jumped.]

  
The Asset is Dead. The Soldier is Dead. The Creature is Alive. Long may it reign.  
The Creature saved The Captain.  
The Creature does not know Why.  
The Creature is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. The Creature is also Not James Buchanan Barnes. The Creature is confused.  
The Creature has not slept in 196 hours.  
The Creature is not allowed to sleep. Sleep may only be granted by its Handler.  
The Creature has seen the Captain and it has also seen the Falcon but the Falcon has new wings it thinks and its eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord and it remembers the scent of cigarettes and the sweet taste of Steve? and also hands on its head on its knees getting two dollars a blow job in back alley ways in Brooklyn because Christ, Carter, asthma medicine’s not going to pay for itself you think you love him I fucking loved him you selfish broad you never even knew him you only see the Captain fuck sake’s woman he’s my friend if you ever tell him you’re dead think I want him knowing that think I want him thinking I’m some fucking fairy some fucking fag some dirty queer that even after all this I’d still go down for him and now he’s sobbing and doesn’t know why but fuck you fuck you fuck you Carter and the bitch is actually crying and BarnesBarnes you’re bloody fucking drunk Barnes shut up shut up shut up.  
The Creature believes it may be hallucinating.  
The Creature fears it may be _remembering._  
  
Remembering is painful. Remembering is shame. _I loved him I loved him I fucking loved him_ but he’d still gone down on his knees for half the city he’d been eleven fucking years old and there was a cop who knew who saw who fucked his mouth every morning for twelve years instead of arresting him helping him that’s messed up, that shit is messed up, okay? And he’d taken it, taken it and fucking swallowed it for Steve, for Carter in the mouth in the ass came for those fucking Nazis those HYDRA bastards got fucking on his hands and knees and got fucked got hard fucking liked it what sort of sick fuck would like that.  
  
Fucked up, Barnes told Carter. I’m fucked up.  
  
The Creature agrees.  
  
Don’t tell Stevie. Don’t tell Cap. You ever tell him I’ll fucking kill you.  
  
But Carter is old now. She does not remember the Creature. She only stares, talks about Steve. Talks about Barnes. Says the Creature looks just like him. Says it was a shame, a shame he died so young, she was goddamned glad he died so young so he’d never have to see, to know, to feel that pain did it want to look at pictures of Angie, Angie and the girls we never married you know you couldn’t back then they tried to take the girls away deport me I was a SHIELD Agent, goddamnit. They said it wasn’t right, wasn’t proper, asked what would Captain America think about it. Well let me tell you now, you bastards, Steve Rogers didn’t hate queers Steve Rogers wasn’t the puppet they make him out to be Steve Rogers wouldn’t’ve stood for it how did they think he’d like them treating his best girl and boy—she’s sorry, she’s sorry, she’s said to much, he’s not to put that in print young man, she may be old but she still has attorneys, he even thinks about tainting Steven Grant Rogers Sainted Name  then Heaven help him and she’ll bloody well sue him into the next century death be damned and fuck him if he thinks she can’t.  
  
Did he love her?  
  
Of course he bloody loved her. But it was war, it wasn’t if they had time to marry and settle down. Hard enough being a WAC did you know you couldn’t marry not even in the Nursing Corp did he think something as stupid as a piece of paper or a ring was going to keep Peggy Carter from fighting Hitler and HYDRA with the Howlie’s, keep her from Steve’s side?  
  
Did he love—him?  
  
Of course he bloody loved him, you ridiculous academic types. It was so bloody obvious. It’s 2014 now, not 1945 for fuck’s sake. She’s old, not dead. They made time every chance they got. But it was war, it was 1945 for fuck’s sake, there were the Commandos to think of, the USO and Allied War Effort breathing down their necks, it wasn’t if they could marry and settle down it was different back then thank fuck he was young he didn’t know couldn’t understand how dangerous it was they’d sneak away or she’d stand guard outside a tent while they fucked and fuck you, fuck you young man this is all off the record and she had better not ever see this up on the internet she would burn him out of Twitter and Tumblr and whatever else the hell this tech generation had dreamed up so help her God she would get out of this bed and kick his arse herself she didn’t care if she broke a hip or not and she was coughing for the love of queen and country would he just be a good boy and hand her her water?  
  
And he looked so much like him, _so much like him_ it had been so, so long since she’d seen Steve’s best boy, said she’d seen Steve last week knew she was old she was sick she was bat-shit crazy with this damned dementia swore up and down she’d seen Angie this morning but it was only her granddaughter and why did it hurt so much goddamnit she was old and lonely and sick why couldn’t they just leave her in peace and let her fucking die.  
  
Kill me.  
  
The Creature wasn’t the Asset. The Soldier. The Creature didn’t have to follow orders. The Creature felt it would be a mercy. The Creature wasn’t certain what ‘a mercy’ was.  
  
Had he come to kill her. Had he come to damn her. She was sorry. She wishes things could’ve been back then the way there were now. She never got to marry Steve. She never even got to marry Angie. Steve never got to marry either of them. In a way she supposed it was only fair. She didn’t blame Steve. Not for dying. Even if he was a self-righteous little shit and the sweetest, bravest man who ever lived.  Thank God because if he ever had to choose it wasn’t going to be her not over his best boy and it might be 2014 now but the world was a far cry away from accepting ‘one of those’ arrangements and Peggy Carter was too much a selfish bitch to share and she had Angie now it was just a shame they never married Steve should have his best boy it’s what Steve would’ve wanted and he was just too damned selfless to ever ask.  
  
Now go away. She was sick. She was old. Would he come again tomorrow? Who was, he, again—?  
  
She would see him tomorrow, young man.  
She never saw The Creature again.  
  
The Creature Fell. It did not. The Creature fuckin’ jumped.  
The Creature is Alive.  
The Creature saved The Captain.  
The Creature does not know Why.  
The Creature is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. The Creature is also Not James Buchanan  “Bucky” Barnes. This Creature is still confused.  
The Creature has not slept in 221 hours.  
The Creature is not allowed to sleep. Sleep may only be granted by its Handler.  
The Creature has seen the Captain again and the Captain is Steve and when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead and he laid his right hand upon me saying unto me fear not I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keys of hell and of death write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter but all the things that were and are and shall be hereafter are getting jumbled in his head and he’s _Jewish_ for fuck’s sake blame Steve’s fucking ma blame  Sarah Rogers and her fucking Bible and it hurts so much and the Creature went to The Woman Agent Carter Peggy Steve’s Best Girl and The Woman Agent Carter Peggy Steve’s Best Girl is no help and The Woman Agent Carter Peggy Steve’s Best Girl is dying and fuck you, fuck you Carter for taking him fuck you again for taking him and the Captain is chasing The Creature when the Captain should be with The Woman Agent Carter Peggy Steve’s Best Girl it’s what Steve would’ve wanted, damnit.  
The Creature is remembering.  
The Creature does not wish to.  
  
The Creature wishes it could forget.  
The Creature wishes The Captain would stop chasing it.  
The Creature is not James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. The Creature is doubtful this James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes ever did exist.  
  
The Creature cannot forget.  
The Captain will not stop chasing it.  
The Creature is not James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. It says this. The Captain will not listen.

  
...The Captain will not listen. Perhaps the Falcon will.


	4. Chapter 4

So Sam Wilson was a swell guy.  
  
A morning run, weekly drop-by at one of his sessions to talk with other Vets, beers on Friday nights,  the man didn’t sing Barbershop but he’d convinced Steve to get off his ass and go for karaoke (apparently Japan was a really big hit after the War) and _for the love of fuck, Rogers, actually meet people._  
  
“I meet plenty of people,” he’d argued. But apparently stiffs in suits or uniforms or goddamned kids getting autographs didn’t count.  
  
Steve thought that was unfair. The Guards and Curators at the Smithsonian exhibit knew him by name. Well. So did everyone. But he knew them, if that made any sense. And Irene Halsteder had—he wasn’t proud of this, hadn’t really found a way to tell Sam—even opened the exhibit once at 3 am when he woke up sobbing still on that goddamned train and let him have a good cry in the middle of the Howlie’s, never said a word about it and even brought him some tea.  
  
Sam could turn it off. All his tough-guy soldiering. Could be as nurturing as a mother hen to Vets, even to Steve—a role he was more than comfortable letting another man play. He’d looked up to, been protected by Buck his whole life.  Maybe it was the modern times. That term—was was it? metrosexual? There were so many of them now, all these words for things that had to exist, but they just didn’t have words for in Prohibition America when he was born. Or maybe they did, but he’d never known. He’d heard, queers, queens, fairies, fags…but those were all insults. Not bland descriptors. Not…not the off-handed "oh, he’s gay.” Maybe people were just different now. Maybe people could be well-dressed and artistic and emotional without being fairies, without being queers, maybe skinny little Steve Rogers wouldn’t’ve felt so much pressure, so much like a failure if he’d grown up in a world where men could be caretakers, not providers, where it was just as honorable to be a scientist or artist as a soldier, where men could be creators, not just destroyers.  
  
…Hell. Maybe skinny little Stevie Rogers wouldn’t give a damn if people thought he was.

  
   
[Maybe skinny little Stevie Rogers wouldn’t even give a damn if he knew he was.]

  
Yeah. The Twenty-First Century was pretty great about stuff like that. Not to mention air conditioning, asthma medications, and antibiotics. Hell, they had cured polio. Polio! It wasn’t the world he’d known, not even the world he’d given his life for…but modern times were still good, considering. The twenty-first century was a strange and marvelous place, and Sam Wilson—his first real friend in seventy years—was a swell guy.  
  
…The twenty-first century could also be a backstabbing bitch, and Sam Wilson could be entirely unreasonable about his health and sanity.

  
[And it. Reminded him. So much.]  
[All he could not to grin. Not to cry.]

  
First Peggy.  
Now him.  
  
“I’m not saying he’s _evil,_ Steve," Sam insisted. "All I’m saying is that the dude broke into a Nursing Home, dude broke  into your apartment, tied you up, threatened you with a knife—“  
  
Sam didn’t know about the stabbing or skinning because honestly, Bucky was confused and hadn’t meant to hurt him and anyways _it was Buck_ y and it was mostly healed anyway thanks to Dr. Erskine and the US Military. The truth would only make the issue more complicated for Sam, be yet another incentive for SHIELD’s witch hunt. So if Steve Rogers felt slightly guilty about being less than honest with his friend, then Captain Rogers knew the information was factually irrelevant to the mission at hand.  
  
“—then vanished into the night _like a fucking cat burglar_ under the watchful eye of seven SHIELD agents.”  
  
Sharon Carter and the Shield Special Service had been less than amused.

  
“You could’ve called for help. We’re here to protect you.”

  
“Can you tell me with 100% certainty that you wouldn’t’ve shot him on sight? My best friend. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th.  The longest serving POW in world history who your damned organization has the audacity to have labelled a _terrorist_?”

“Cap—“

“We’re done here.” He never used to be so rude. Talking to dames. But if it was between torture and Bucky getting shot down like a dog when he was sick, hurt, confused…when all he needed was help. Was Steve. Well. Steve would take torture any day.  
  
Every day. Forever. As long as it took.

Until Bucky came home.  
  
“Like I said. He’s not evil. I get that. But he’s sure as fuck not the sort of guy you need to be facing on your own anytime soon.”  
  
“He wanted to talk to Stevie,” he shrugged instead.

“I’d say from the looks of things it was more an interrogation. Talking is phoning ahead, bringing a case of beer—you’re welcome, by the way—not breaking and entering and carbon steel cables.”

  
“He wanted to talk to Stevie, but he didn’t remember the serum. He, he didn’t remember _me._ Not like this—he thought I was a handler, thought I was Pierce for awhile, I think—“ Steve had seen the pictures, seen the man’s face younger, the straight jaw, broad shoulders, soft blue eyes and blonde hair, knew The Asset fought his Handlers, over the years had even killed several, had violent altercations with all but one...and it was obvious to anyone with eyes as to why.  
  
Alexander Pierce could have easily been Captain America.

  
Buck had remembered him. Even then. Even with the words were lost and Buck didn’t even know his own name he’d remembered him. And that sick bastard had used it—used Buck—to his own advantage.  If Fury hadn’t killed him, Steve would.  
…And if his ma hadn’t raised him better, Captain Steven Grant Rogers would have gone and pissed on the man’s grave, dead and buried be _damned_.  
  
“Fuck, Steve,” Sam shook his head. “What’d he do to you?”

* * *

He woke up. The air was cold. Wind? The window was open. Steve never slept with the window open, Buck would never let him, not even in summer when their flat was stifling. Made his asthma act up, made him gasp for breath. Steve sat up. Blinked. Something— _someone_ moved in the shadows.  
  
Tall. Dark. Strutting like a dog down familiar streets.

  
“Bucky,” he breathed, barely daring to hope. “Bucky, you’ve come home—“ Not Bucky. The Winter Soldier. But Steve was unafraid. He had talked the Soldier down before. “It’s alright, Buck. It’s Steve Rogers. Stevie. You know me.”

  
“Steve Rogers. I. Know you.” The words were garbled, guttural, he had that goddamned muzzle still in place.

  
“Of course you do, Buck. C’mere, sweetheart. Let me see you,” Steve was reaching for the lamp when the baton hit his arm. He remembered pain, the crackling of electricity, then all was dark.  
  
Then cold. _Cold water hit him the windows exploded water rushing everywhere all dark he was gasping for breath—_  
  
Someone struck him. He was back. D.C. 2014. His own flat. Not the ice. He was here. Home. _Now_. Hadn’t lost time lost friends lost fucking everything. Not again.  
  
Hyperventilating. _Breathe, asshole, Breathe you little shit don’t you dare die on me Stevie c’mon shit for lungs breathe breathe you’re gonna fucking breathe if I have to breathe for you damnit,_ he talked himself down, played Bucky’s voice over and over again until air came in deep, sweet draughts.  
  
But The Winter Soldier was raging, grappling, snarling against him. “Don’t do that don’t you fucking do that you’re not him you’re not fucking him don’t try to confuse me—!”

  
“No one’s trying to confuse you, sweetheart,” Steve managed to rasp. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  
“SHUT UP!”

  
“Okay, okay Bucky, honey. Whatever you want.”

  
“I said SHUT UP!”

  
So Steve shut up. Watched The Winter Soldier, watched not-Bucky, still-Bucky, sink to his knees shaking, wracked with ugly sobs, crying and gasping, grunting and ticcing as if terrified to find the tears on his face, slapping himself whimpering ‘ _stopstopstop_ ’.  
  
“It’s okay Bucky-sweetheart, it’s okay to cry, it’s Stevie, I’m not going to hurt you no one’s going to hurt you—“  
  
“W-wh-what’s w-wrong with m-m-me?”

  
“Bucky. _Bucky_ —“

  
The Soldier raised his head. Stood. Tear tracks still draining down that mask. But the eyes were hollow. Dead. “Malfunction, sir. The Asset should be removed from duty. Mission integrity is compromised.”

  
The Mission. Right. As if the stun batons and waking to find himself strung up by the wrists to the rig he used for punching bags wasn’t the first clue. “Alright, Soldier. Thank you for telling me,” Steve tried to smile, remain calm, complete the pattern like the Soldier’s Handlers would. “I appreciate that, I really do. Remind me, Soldier, what was the mission again.”

  
“Mission, sir. Find Steve Rogers, sir.”

  
“Great, Soldier. That’s great. And what will you do with him when you find him.”

  
“Steve Rogers alias Captain America is an enemy threat, sir,” he repeated as though reading it from a mission brief. “Steve Rogers must be terminated, sir. Hail HYDRA.”

  
“Okay,” Steve thought. “Okay, Soldier. Stand down. Mission abort.”

  
Those blue eyes blinked, the hesitancy in his voice muffled by the mask. “Mission abort?”

  
“You have bad intelligence, Soldier. It’s not your fault—you’re doing great, you did _so well_ , Soldier,” Steve said, knowing full well what sort of punishment the Winter Soldier had been conditioned to expect if he failed in the field. “But they told you wrong, Soldier. Steve Rogers is a friend.”

  
The Winter Soldier cocked his head, but no trace of curiosity or emotion hid behind those eyes. “Order acknowledged,” a monotone voice replied. “Authenticate.”

  
_Damnit_ , Steve thought. _Of course not._

  
“I don’t need to authenticate, Soldier. You know me,” Steve tried instead, not really certain what he was hoping for. That Buck would recognize him? That the Soldier would blindly follow orders? “You know me. Who am I?”

  
“Director Pierce, sir. Commander. The Asset’s Handler, sir.”

  
Steve was nearly sick. Had to choke down vomit to do what came next. “That’s right, Soldier. That’s right. I’m the Commander. I’m your Handler. You know me. I don’t need to authenticate, do I?”

  
Those eyebrows furrow. Shoulders hunch. That look, like a slapped dog, awaiting more pain. “Sir?”

  
“Alright, you’re doing great, Soldier.” And the hope, the change, sudden wonder in those eyes from this simple praise was sickening. “Now I need you to do something, Soldier. That mask—can you take it off for me, Soldier?”

  
And he could. The sickest thing was he could, he physically could, at any time, remove all those barbaric restraints. But without the order, without the specific command, the Soldier wouldn’t. Not even uncomfortable. Not even in pain. Not even even while being raped.

  
“Okay, okay, Soldier, that’s better, isn’t it?”

  
“Affirmative?”

  
“Alright, Soldier. I’ve got another order for you. Find Steve Rogers. Can you do that for me, Soldier?”

  
The Soldier nodded.

  
“Did you find him?”

  
Confusion. A flicker. Head cocked to the left. Eyes shifting.

  
“C’mon, Soldier. You see him, don’t you?”

  
“Sir?”

  
“Where is he?”

  
That grunting again. Shaking of his head. To the left, left, blink, swallow, nod. Left, left, blink, swallow, nod over and over again. Caught in a pattern he couldn’t help but repeat. Steve had seen victims of the Great War—hell, even Gulf Veterans—with brain injuries and shell shock, and he saw the same thing here. “Wh-wh-wha—“ the Soldier’s—Bucky’s—wide blue eyes struggled to understand, to stop, terrified to find himself stuck in this inescapable programming.  
  
“Hey, hey, Soldier. _Bucky_. Come here, I’ve got you.”

  
And Bucky came forward, laid his head down against his shoulder, his chest, still nodding and grunting helplessly, whole body shaking as Steve nuzzled and comforted as best he could without his hands. And it was—fuck—it was obscene the way Bucky’s body responded to even the slightest of touches, growing hard, lips parted, moaning, those tics still deep in his throat and head jerking like he was rutting…but this wasn’t Bucky Barnes. This was a protocol. An order. A sick joke Pierce and god knows how many others had programmed because The Winter Soldier was the perfect, silent, willing victim.  

  
“It’s alright, Buck,” Steve breathed into his ears, that tangled hair. “I know. _I know_ , honey. It’s okay, it’s okay now. No one’s going to ask you to do that. Ever again. Okay? I’ve got you, honey—“  
  
It was everything he could do to stay upright, hold both their weight up through his shoulders. He could give the order, Steve knew, tell the Soldier to cut him down. The Soldier had been trained to obey, and even now with his arms wrapped firmly around Steve and sobbing for the first kind touch in seventy years he’d step back and release Steve on command. But Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes had been given enough orders to last a lifetime. He’d been starved for affection for nearly a century. Steve’s back could hold out a little longer.  
  
“Buck, Buck it’s me, Buck. Look at me. You know me. I’m Steve, It’s Stevie, your Stevie, Buck. I’m here.”  
  
“Stevie?” The Soldier—no, Bucky—asked, looking up, flesh and metal hands flitting to his face, staring straight into his eyes, pressing fingers to his lips. And Goddamnit Steve was trying to be strong but the sudden burst of recognition brought tears to his eyes and he was sobbing, bawling with his forehead against Bucky’s like a baby.  
  
“Shhh. Shhh,” those hands—both the warm and cool—wiped away hot tears. “It’s okay, Stevie. It’s okay. I see you.”  
  
_I see you._  
  
Thank God. “Buck—“ he choked.  
  
“Don’t worry, Stevie,” Bucky breathed, leaned in on tiptoes and kissed him, no more than his open mouth against Steve’s split lips. “Don’t you cry, babydoll. I’m going to get you out of there.”  
  
And that’s when the knife came out. Pressed deep into the side of his face. White-hot, blinding pain. Agony. It was everything Steve could do not to scream.    
  
“It’s alright Buck, I’m here Buck, Bucky-sweetheart it’s me,” he gasped. “it’s your _Steve_ —“ Bucky was confused. He was sick. He needed help. He needed _Steve_.  
  
…And Steve was right there. Inside Pierce. So he peeled him back. One layer at a time. Just searching. And the worst part was his friend’s voice, sad smile, those kind, reassuring eyes, whispered singing of “I see you Stevie don’t cry champ it’ll be okay it’ll all be okay ace I’ll find you…”  
  
When he woke it was to the sounds of morning traffic, dried blood caked on his swollen face, his shirt, still trussed up by his arms. He was alone. And Steve had only hung there, shoulders out of socket, sobbing for the better part of an hour before he even tried to wrest himself free.

* * *

“Steve?”

  
“He knew me, Sam. He _knew_ me. Even if he couldn’t recognize me, he knew I was Stevie but it didn’t make any sense to him at all. He thought—he thought I was Pierce. And Stevie. And I think—he must’ve thought—I was trapped inside or something. He was just trying to help—“  
  
“The fuck did he do, Steve?” Sam's voice was stern.  
  
“Nothing I blame him for.”  
  
Sam helped him with clean-up, putting new locks on all the windows, raised an eyebrow over the blood stains on the carpet, the walls, Steve’s clothes.  
  
“Bucky, he left me something. A note. I don’t—would you see it?” Perhaps Sam would understand. Could explain—  
  
“Huh,” he said.  
  
The mirrors in the bathroom had been smashed. A metal and flesh fist at face-height through each, blood crusted from the knuckles.

  
DANGEROUS  
NOT BARNES  
PLEASE STOP

  
  
“I’d say that’s pretty damn clear, Steve.”

* * *

Bucky hadn’t stopped there. Not with Peggy. Not with Steve. Both Pierce’s house and a nearby luxury hotel had burned down overnight, crews still on scene trying to control the blaze. Steve didn’t want to think what had happened, how many times, what went on in that executive suite over the years that merited destroying an entire building. What sort of memories and nightmares his gentle touches brought back to the surface.  
  
But that wasn’t the worst. Not the knife wounds, not the still-raging fires, not triggering his friend's rapes. Bucky had even broken into the Smithsonian. Stark had erased the footage, agreed to let the world think it was some random act of hate, more of the fallout from D.C., HYDRA, Sokovia, the rage against the ‘traitorous’ Winter Soldier.  
  
…the world didn’t need to know it had been Bucky Barnes himself who carved up the mannequin. Took its arm. Put it on its knees with its pants down. Poked out his eyes in all the pictures. Scrawled JAMES BARNES WAS A FUCKING QUEER across the exhibit banner. Who scratched SLUT or WHORE over every single instance of his own name.  
  
Sam said it was normal for rape victims to blame themselves for their attack. Said that a lot of the female vets he knew had histories with sexual assault (Steve had to choke down his anger that it was at the hands of their fellow soldiers) in addition to combat PTSD. Said that it wasn’t uncommon for a victim to experience arousal, to climax even. To let that guilt and shame stop them from coming forward. “You wanna talk about that?” Sam had asked him.  
  
You wanna talk about that? Steve wanted nothing better than to understand, to reach out to Bucky. To get him whatever help it was he needed. To just have himself a good cry on a sympathetic shoulder. But his decision on that matter had been final: Steve Rogers would not be answering any questions about Bucky’s sexuality. Not now. Not for anyone. Not ever.  
If Bucky ever got better— _when_ Bucky got better—it would be his decision to out himself. Steve couldn’t do that. Not to his best guy.  
  
He shrugged. “Not really.”

  
“Star Wars, then?” Sam asked instead.

  
“I was thinking Trek, actually. Clint told me the prequels (was that even a real word?) weren’t worth watching.”

  
“Alright, man. Original Series it is. You want a beer?”


	5. Chapter 5

“Alright, man. So no fucking around—who’s your favorite: Kirk or Picard.”

  
“Oh, make a man choose, is that how this is, Sam?” Steve laughed. “Picard.”

  
“Man, I fucking knew it!”

  
“What can I say? I’m predictable like that.” But Cap was looking at him. That sage, scared-out-of-my balls and/or constipated to my eyebrows look he got when he wanted to bring up something serious. But hey, the guy was ninety-six, had slept for the last seventy years. He was clueless as fuck, and it was adorable, really, to think of him punching Herr Schmidt in the face yet cringe at the sight of an electric toothbrush.

  
“Oh, spit it out, Steve. You're giving _me_ an ulcer."

  
“Uhura. I did some reading. She was the first black woman on television. First black woman to kiss a white man on screen,” his blue eyes flicked to Sam. “At risk of sounding absolutely ancient, back in my day people didn’t look too kindly on that.”

  
“What, you mean my people couldn’t vote and interracial marriage was illegal?” Sam grinned. “Shit, son, I never knew. Tell me more.”

  
Rogers flushed. “I mean—it’s nice. I think. For everyone. It’s how it should be.”

  
“Yeah. Roddenberry sure knew what he was doing. You know she was going to quit, right, and MLK Jr. talked her out of it?”

  
“Really?” Steve looked thoughtful. “Then I like him even more, now.”

  
“Funny you should say that.”

  
“Why?”

  
“MLK Jr. was targeted by the FBI. He was considered a threat to national security. They got some dirt on his marriage, threatened him with it. Lot of folks back then—hell, up until last year even. Lets just say anytime somebody didn’t like something, they’d say Cap wouldn’t approve. And MLK Jr. was one of those somethings.”  
  
Steve snorted. “You know I didn’t want to take Morita at first, right? That part probably never made it to the history books, but I thought he might be a spy. The internment camps were everywhere—hell, I had to make some pieces promoting them. So here I am in a goddamned Nazi factory in the middle of the Italian Alps, 30 clicks behind enemy lines, going after Buck single-handedly and I almost turn this guy down, turn this guy down and leave him there, turn down help destroying the Nazis just for—what? Being a Jap? And yes, that’s a rude term I know and I’m going to hell and I’m working on it don’t look at me like that. Point being, just because Captain America says something, don’t believe it. That guy spent half the war in a dance troop parroting politicians and can’t think for shit. Buck used to say I had less brains than a half-eaten can of spam, and I think he’s right.”

  
“Morita, huh?” Sam grinned, enthralled. “But not Gabe.”  
  
“Hell, no. I’m from a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, remember? I saw black faces every day. Colored folk— _oh, hell_ , _Sam_ —my point is, everyone’s a little racist. My generation grew up hating Germans for the Great War, and look where that got us and _why are you laughing?”_

  
“Oh, man, I’m laughing because so many cis white dudes try to dance around the subject or fucking ignore it completely and you just blunder in steppin’ on toes and makin’ apologies like it ain’t no thing.”

  
“So that’s a good laugh, not ‘oh my God, my childhood hero just ruined my life’ laugh? Because I get that one a lot, too, you know.”

  
“Yeah, man. Yeah, that’s a good thing. You’re aware about your biases and open enough to discuss them. But shit, man. It’s fucking hilarious.”

  
Steve flushed.

  
…and here it goes. “But man, speaking of Morita, you know Sulu’s gay, yeah?”

  
“Who’s what?” Steve definitely sat up a little straighter.

  
It makes him uncomfortable, Sam assessed. “Sulu. Well, George Takei, the actor who plays him. Big civil rights activist. Tumblr fanatic.”

  
Steve frowned. “That’s the um, the internet thing, right?”

  
“Yeah, man. Point being, he used to do a bunch of stuff talking about Morita, even got to interview him once. Grew up in the internment camps and went on to become a film star. You think Uhura’s cool? I mean, how awesome is that?”

  
“Morita wasn’t gay.”

  
“Yeah, no man. I mean, Japanese.”

  
“Oh. Oh, right!” Steve laughed, suddenly much more relaxed. “Yeah. Yeah that’s cool. That’s really cool. Did you know that’s a word we used? Back then? Cool.”  
Yeah, Capsicle. And did you know it was still black slang back then? But Steve Rogers was trying, Steve Rogers was Captain America, it was so damn refreshing to talk to someone as important as Steve without going through several PR filters first.

  
“He’s got a musical. About it. The internment camps. Thought about going.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“Yeah, well, social justice be damned only no way am I going to see a goddamned theater musical by myself.”

  
“Well, you should take a date, then.”

  
“Capsicle, I’m babysitting your rusty-dusty ass all day and roaming the streets for SHIELD’s most wanted rock-n-sock’m robot at night. You think I have time to find a date?”

  
“I, um, I thought they had—internet?—for that sort of thing?” Internet, Steve Rogers was convinced, was a mysterious, magical force that applied to every aspect of modern American life. Tony Stark certainly wasn’t helping, sending him Ubers and prank ordering pizzas and Amazon delivery, not to mention spamming Cap’s Avengers inbox with the dirtiest, filthiest smut sites Tor could find.

  
[“Well,” Steve had said, face beet-red. “That’s um, certainly something.” Then refused to use a computer for a solid week.]

  
“Apps?” Sam couldn’t suppress a grin.

  
Steve snapped his fingers, made the gotcha sign. “That’s the one.”

  
“You want me to Tinder myself a girl for Allegiance, is that what you’re saying?”

  
“Your words, buddy. Not mine.”

  
“Well then, _buddy_ , the day I take dating advice from a ninety-six year old man who hasn’t gotten laid in the last half-century—if at all—is the day this man hangs up his wings for good.”

  
Steve snorted beer through his nose, face crinkling up and eyes tearing. “Alright, then. We both go, we both get girls. Deal?”

  
“Serious?”

  
“Yeah, well, nothin’ too serious,” Steve flushed, breaking into his Brooklyn crawl. “Just the sort of double-dates I used to do with Buck. I ain’t looking to get married, it’s just my best girl can’t really get out much anymore, and I can’t leave my buddy hanging.”

  
“Alright,” Sam shook on it. “Fair enough. Man, I can’t believe I’m going on a double-date with _Captain America_.”  


* * *

**Somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen…**  
  
“Oh, Goddamnit,” Claire Temple fumed. “I can’t believe I’m going on a double-date with _Captain America_.” As if her last foray into superhero relationships hadn’t gone bad enough…  
  
“C’mon, Claire,” Laurel wheedled, chewing her lip piercing and bouncing excitedly on the spot. “ _He asked me out and if I had a friend_ and I wasn’t even thinking I just said yes _because it’s Captain friggin’ America_ and you have to help me! And his friend is super-cute and sweet and sassy. It’ll be fun!”  


* * *

“Oh, man,” Sam groaned, suddenly and actually nervous for the first time since this whole ridiculous thing started. Whatever it took to get Cap laid, though. Laurel From Accounting wasn’t much to look at, sure…but Claire I Think She's A Nurse Temple was a slice of chocolate cake on two long, lean chocolate legs and he would totally _eat_ that, chocolate frosting or no. “What’d you tell her about me?”  
  
Steve shook his head, waving to the girls. “Only the good stuff.”  
  
So dinner was good, the musical was great, Steve let Laurel down gently with a quick peck on the cheek and holy shit Claire Temple was awesome. And if Sam felt slightly guilty leaving Steve alone to go back to some chick’s house for what promised to be the best sex of his life…well. He didn’t feel guilty for long.  
  
“So, um. Sorry about that, man. But you know how it is?”

  
“Oh? And here I thought I was—and let me read this exactly—“ Steve pulled out his goddamned list. “‘The ninety-six year old man who hasn’t gotten laid in the last half-century—if at all.”

  
“Shit, man.”

  
“I shared an apartment with James Buchanan Barnes for five years, Sam. You think I don’t know when sex is about to happen?”

  
“So the Notorious JBB liked to get it on with the ladies, then?”

  
“Let’s just say for a guy sharing a twin bed, I spent a lot of nights alone.” Well. Huh. If that was Steve Rogers coming out, it was all a bit underwhelming. “You two rationed now?” Steve asked, before Sam could think of anything.

  
“What?”

  
“Going steady. Whatever the hell you kids call it these days.”

  
“No, man. We just fucked and I got her number.”

  
“Well,” Steve said. “That’s certainly something.”

  
“You have no idea what that means, man, do you.”

  
“Internet, right?”  


* * *

“Okay, so what’s next, man? Die Hard? Terminator? The Lord of the Rings?”

  
“Lord of the RIngs?”

  
“Holy. Shit. Dude, you don’t know about Tolkien—?”

  
“Sure, I’ve heard of Tolkien,” Steve said, almost defensively. “But he wrote kid’s stuff, didn’t he?”

  
“Fuck, man! Fuck no! He’s only the father of modern science ficiton and fantasy!”

  
“Kid’s stuff,” Steve insisted. “You know. _The Hobbit._ ”

  
“Oh my fucking God, Rogers. Oh my fucking God. We are getting you a Kindle and you are fucking reading The Lord of the Rings. Right now. Goddamn.”  


* * *

“What’d you think?”

  
Steve’s smile twisted. “Didn’t finish it”

  
“Aw, hell, man,” Sam could kill himself. “Was it Gandalf, or Boromir?”

  
“Neither. I got through The Two Towers.”

  
“Dude, not to spoil anything, but Sam gets him back if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  
“It’s just…it’s a bit much. For now,” Cap’s smile was pained. “Maybe another time.”

  
“Yeah. Yeah, man. I’m sorry.” _Sam Wilson you’re a giant, feathered ass_ , Sam thought bitterly. _Trigger warnings, man. Trigger. Fucking. Warnings._  


* * *

The whole Smithsonian thing was eating him. Steve said he was fine, but man, you could tell the brother was lying. He hadn’t been back since. So Sam the totally awesome friend cancelled his totally awesome Saturday afternoon plans with a totally awesome smokin’ hot lady by the name of Claire Go Down On Me Now Son Temple to take some fossil back to the museum where he belonged.  
  
…and you knew it was bad when the staff and security guards said they were glad to see him again.  
  
The exhibits were back up. The graffiti scrubbed clean. “See?” Sam said. “Just like old times.”

  
Shit, he kicked himself. Not the thing to say to Captain fucking America in a room full of the Howling Commandos and memories of James Buchanan Barnes. “Ice cream?” Sam asked. The goddamn museum cafeteria was too expensive, but anything to make Steve look less like someone had kicked a puppy.

  
  
[Kicked, brainwashed, sexually assaulted, turned into a murderbot…you know.]  
[Man, _fuck_ HYDRA.]

  
“Yeah,” Steve sighed, eyes downcast under that ridiculous billed cap. “Yeah, that’s a great idea.”  
  
“He wasn’t, you know.”  
  
“Wasn’t what?” A fucking queer? Slut? Whore? God, they’d lived in Brooklyn by the Naval Base, and if Sam knew anything about the climate at the time, all those single, sex-starved men in the closet, all those poor kids in a pedophile’s playground…in the depression when families were desperate for money? It was 2015 now, and the US still charged kids with sex crimes and prostitution when any idiot knew they were still under the age of consent, that it was rape and what the hell was wrong this this goddamned country and he’d worked in this business for way too long. Point being—well.  
  
Point being James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes might be _remembering._ And might be having a struggle to identify himself with the clean-cut, All-American do-gooder history made him out to be. Imagine the shock of realizing that identity, the relief…then the shame and horror that came with the rush of real memories, not some canned story to sell to GIs overseas and Bondsmen back home. Because you can be sure if it was sexual abuse it was ignored, and if it was sexual orientation it was labelled deviant.  
  
Sure, the Winter Soldier was crazy as shit. He’d heard the stories and fuck, you thought Loki was messed up? Deuce-face demigod had nothing on Old Man Winter. Maybe he was pissed at Steve, pissed at him for leaving him behind to rot in ice. Maybe he was acting under orders from a new Handler just to fuck with Steve Rogers, get the Avengers off their game. But this screamed a lot more like _internalized homophobia and self-loathing_ than just baiting Captain America.  
  
…aw, hell no, man. He was going to have to do The Thing. He was going to have to take Elsa and Anna (assuming Elsa finally got his shit together) to meet Sarah. Took Sister a long damn time to admit it, Pop being a preacher and all. Told him years and years later she wasn’t there, she was late that day ‘cause her college room mate had gotten all bi-curious one weekend and went down on her. Blamed herself. What, Sam had asked, like you think God killed Pops ‘caused you were off getting a blow job? Sarah hadn’t thought it was funny, she still hated him for it, not as much as he hated himself for it…but man, Teenage Asshole Past Sam thought it was goddamned hilarious.  
  
Teenage Asshole Past Sam, it must be said, never had to deal with being on the inside of The Closet.  
  
“He wasn’t this good, quiet, all-American kid,” Steve continued. “Christ, where’d they even get that idea?”

  
So here’s the thing: Steve Rogers and the Notorious JBB were besties, possibly secret war husbands, or perhaps both besties AND secret war husbands, had goddamned fanfiction written about them and honest-to-God historians and pop culture critics raking their platonic-bromance/possible-romance over the coals but dude still rarely talked about him. So yeah. Sam Wilson wasn’t prying, but if Steve wanted to talk…like hell he was going to stop him.

“Man, JBB was my favorite Howlie, you know. Aside from Gabe—and you. Obviously. Tell me about him.”  
  
...And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how this whole sordid mess got started.  
  
Seven hours, several ice cream cones, and a very disappointed crowd of little kids and parents trying to be inconspicuously cute and noticed later, Captain Steven Grant “America” Rogers would not shut up.  
  
“Buck had a temper, had a mouth on him that could make a sailor blush, I swear, Sam, swear to God the language that came out of that mouth…I had Phillips shouting at me for the things he said over radio, had the press core furious ‘cause they couldn’t use the footage, had to play it on silent with music—“ Steve laughed. “And that little shit only did it more, trying to get a laugh out of the Howlie’s, a rise out of Phillips. It was disgusting. I felt bad for Peg, for all the WAC’s, but he’d just wink and apologize, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, so sorry, doll. Didn’t see you there.’  and of course they’d stammer all over themselves saying it was fine.”

  
“Your friend was quite the ladies’ man, then.”

  
“Well. Buck was always a charmer. Active duty, I’ll give him that. He could make smoking and cussing like an alley cat seem refined. I don’t even think I heard the f-word if it was coming out of his mouth. You just got used to it. We were in the Italian theater for something like twenty months and Buck never shot a single Nazi, but he had over a hundred of ‘those Nazi-fuckers’ under his belt before--,” here, Rogers choked. “ _Well_.”  
  
“Nazi-fuckers, huh. Sounds about right.”  
  
“I mean, hell, Bucky was _Jewish._ HIs mom’s side, at least. You don’t see that down in the history books. Call him a good Irish-Catholic. It’s bullshit, Sam. Buck never went to mass unless my ma dragged him and only then ‘cause I was going, he liked heckling the nuns and she promised him supper. I remember one time—he’s what, nine years old, the little shit—and he asks Sister Rita if it’s true the Jews killed Jesus, and if so, does that mean they beat God? And if so, why would anyone worship him because it's fact the Jews couldn't beat _anybody._ Got himself slapped good for that.”  
  
“Then?”  
  
“Then he'd had his fun, would’ve let it drop, only Sister Rita had a mean streak a mile wide and called him a filthy little kike. Buck took her ruler and slapped her back, rapped her over the knuckles and hands and head until she was screaming and it took three more to haul him off her. Buck couldn’t stand bullies. Ma never really invited him to church after that.”  
  
“Alright, Cap. We’re finding this guy, finding this guy and I’m getting his goddamned autograph. On my Bucky Bear—and you’re not allowed to laugh about it, man. Not cool.” But they both laughed, and it was goddamned good to see Steve smile again.  
  
Sam was good at what he did, because brother knew how to listen. He didn’t even need to prompt, to say, just sat there, waiting, and Cap went on.  
  
“I fought because I thought I had to. Cause it was the right thing to do. Buck fought because he fucking loved it. Oh, he’d yell at me after, call me a little shit for picking them…but he had this look on his face like it was the best thing in the world. I didn’t like bullies. Still don’t. And Buck—he could’ve easily been one, you know? I saw that side of him. More than once. But he had something worth fighting for, you know?”

  
“He had you.”

  
“Yeah. Yeah, I could keep him check. Give him a reason to want to punch stuff."

  
“So it’s true, then? First time you met?”

  
“Fuck, no! That’s just some ridiculous folktale.”

  
“So first time you met the Notorious JBB, he didn’t save you from some bullies? Next thing you’re going to tell me George Washington didn’t chop down that cherry tree. That happened back in your time, right?”

  
“Sam, swear to God, Sam, the first time I met that stupid punk he was the bully, put my ass in a goddamned trash can, told me to stay down if I knew what was good for me. I asked him if he would, he said no, and I asked him why the hell shouldn’t I do the same, wasn’t right to expect any less of me. He just stood there. Like I could see him puzzling it all out. Told the boys to leave me alone after that. One of ‘em kicked me again so Buck broke his nose.”

  
“Wait, _he_ was the bully? No shit. How the hell you two become friends?”  
  
“Long story. I started—well, word got around Buck had punched out Mad Mikey Corner. So the next time any bullies started bothering me or anyone else I’d just put myself out there, ask ‘em if they knew who I was, say I’m Stevie Rogers and Bucky Barnes was my best friend in the whole wide world and he’d put a fist through their face if they pulled any shit on me. Buck was furious as a spitting cat, said I was an idiot, he wasn't my friend…but yeah. He’d break noses, bust balls, knock out teeth. Kid hated me, but he’d beat the shit out of anyone who hurt me because it was either hit me or them, and ‘ain’t nothin’ good gonna come out of beating your asthmatic ass nohow’. I started to get a reputation, and the smarter kids would leave me alone after that. One day his sister Becca overhead me standing up for Pam-Pam Perez when some punks tried to take her lunch. Got the piss beat out of me, so Becca Barnes kicked their asses harder than Buck ever had, teeth and blood everywhere, got me to my feet, invited me home, cleaned me up, fed me, said I was a sweet little boy, any friend of Bucky’s was a friend of hers, I was welcome any time.”

  
“I’m guessing that was a nasty shock for him.”

  
“Goddamnit, Rogers,” Steve gave a nasally grunt, perfect imitation of some punk kid trying to sound tougher than he was. “Godfuckin’damnit, Rogers. I ain’t your fuckin’ friend.”  
“Sure you are, Buck.”  
‘Go fuck yourself, Rogers.’  
“You can call me Stevie.”  
‘Go fuck yourself, Stevie.’  
  
“…and the rest, as they say, is history.”  
  
“Fuck, man,” Sam wiped his eyes from laughing. His goddamn jaw hurt he’d cracked it open so wide. “That’s goddamn adorable, that’s what that is. Why the hell you haven’t said anything? I mean, there’s all these people—“  
  
“It doesn’t fit their story, Sam,” and suddenly Steve looked so very sad, and so very, very far away. “I learned that from the USO and Press Corp. Peggy had to be a nurse,  just some romantic interest for Captain America instead of the warrior she was. Gabe Jones was our ‘mechanic’ despite being the only college educated one out of all of us and our radio operator because the idea of an educated colored man was just too much. “Bucky Barnes” was a spit-fired, all-American kid who looked up to Cap because the kids would eat it up and they needed that demographic. Same reason they never said he was Jewish. Same reason he was an orphan in the comics—no one wanted to read about the kid with a drunk Old Man who beat him bloody, a mother who let him, and a sister who danced burlesque just to keep food on the table.”  
  
“I never knew that, Steve.” Steve never says queer, though. Sam wonders if it’s cultural, back then it was something shameful—back then people weren’t so open about sexuality of any kind in polite society. But they’d been friends, best friends. Surely, surely Steve would’ve known—?  
  
Hell, Steve would’ve known. Fuck, maybe that’s why he wasn’t saying anything.  
  
Sam Wilson wanted to think he was a good guy. Good friend.  The sort of friend Captain America would feel comfortable coming out to. But hell, Steve Rogers had spent the night in his guest room, and Steve Rogers was the sort of guy who couldn’t disappoint a thirty-something-year-old kid who still had _Captain America and his Howling Commandos_ bedsheets and a goddamned Bucky Bear in the guest room (note to self: redecorate). Hell, Steve had been flustered when went digging for the spare toothbrush and had accidentally discovered lube and stash of condoms. Sam got the feeling Steve didn’t talk about sex very well. At all. With anyone.  
  
“Same reason they gave me elocution lessons before I could go on the radio or films,” he shrugged. “Captain America had to be the Perfect Soldier. They didn’t want him sounding like some Patrick Catlick from Brooklyn.”  
  
Yeah. Sam had heard the old broadcasts. And the voice of Captain America sounded like an old 40’s Radio Announcer. Trans-Atlantic, articulate, easy to understand. Steve Rogers, on the other hand, had the world’s most godawful, over-the-top New Yawker Brooklyn vibe he’d ever heard…not to mention a impressive vocabulary of curse words and honest-to-god authentic slang from the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. Now days in public Captain America/Steve Rogers had a soft but strong regionless, modern pronunciation. In private? And with a few (dozen) beers in him? Steve Rogers could code-switch like a motherfucker. Add to it the anachronisms of seventy-some years of out-of-order pop-culture watching, and it was priceless:  
  
“Ah, applesauce! Hot _damn,_ dog, I’m completely swacked! Gone all schmaltzy and slap-happy.  Hasta la vista, hi-de-ho, yippee-kay-ay, motherfuckers! I’m going to bed. Laters.”

  
  
[“Did he just—“ Tony had gaped on more than one occasion.]  
[“It’s better not to ask,” Nat assured him.]

  
Speaking with Steve was also one of the few times he’d been that comfortable with a white guy, to be honest. Most of them could never understand when and why he switched. They’d laugh along, try to imitate him, call him gangsta…but they never really got it. But he could do it with Steve, around Steve, and it never felt weird. It was something they were, something they wanted to own. It was weird as hell, but that was who they were. So if Cap and Barnes were such good pals, if they really did just have the bromance of the century…  
  
…why the hell had Barnes not told him? Had TNJBB ever sat here, where he was sitting now, and instead of feeling so understood, so carefree, felt he needed to hide?  
  
  
“I didn’t just look up to him, he looked up to _me_. From the moment we met. Said I had moxie. Said I was the stupidest, smallest, stubbornest son of a bitch he’d ever met. God, I hated being so small, so fucking weak, having to have someone take care of me. I was a stupid, selfish son of a bitch and a sickly, touchy cuss, I was never grateful, I took him for granted, I hated every minute of it and I was so damn jealous of him and Buck still took care of me.”  
  
Then his voice broke, and that’s when Sam knew.  
  
“Goddamnit Sam, Buck was _tired._ He was so damn tired. He never told me but I could tell. After Azzano he just wanted to go home, the war, Zola, whatever they did to him it fucking _broke_ him but he stayed on because I did, said no way in hell he was going to go home while I was out there in harm’s way, someone had to have my back so my stupid ass didn’t get myself killed. Hell, Sam, I—“ he shut his eyes. His voice went real quiet. “Sometimes I go back there. To the train. And I swear I’m reaching for him, he’s reaching for me and the panel gives way and he’s screaming and falling and there’s nothing I can fucking do and half the time I swear he’s telling me ‘go back, go back, Stevie you idiot it’s not worth dying for’ and he looks up at me—right at me—and he lets go.”  
  
Now Steve’s sobbing in earnest. “Even when Bucky was _dying_ he was saving my life. And for the life of me I don’t know which one is true. That I failed to save him or the last conscious act he had on this earth before those bastards took everything was to save my ass again.” Steve Rogers was crying. In public. And holy shit, Sam Wilson was officially the worst best friend for unfrozen super-soldiers the world could ever ask for.  
  
And the nice people of the Smithsonian were nice enough to pretend they weren’t pretending not to notice Captain America bawling his eyes out on a park bench, ice cream cone forgotten. So were the nice journalists with their creepy paparazzi cameras. But you know what, fuck it, let them. The world needed fewer muscle-bound, military super soldiers and more heroes like Skinny Steve Rogers who could give his life, give his friend’s life for his country and love so big he’d let himself get stabbed in the face and wasn’t afraid to cry in public, who was sad and hurting and _unashamed_. The world needed Skinny Steve. Anyone in the right uniform could be Captain America. “Everything was fine until I had to go and be a _goddamned hero._ And look where’s it got me. Got him. Christ, I’m a fucking mess.”  
  
“Yeah, Cap,” he clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Let it stay there a long, long time. “Yeah. I know.”  
  
He was definitely going to have to do The Thing. He was going to take Anna to see Sarah, and Elsa would just have to come when he got his shit together. _C’mon, Princess_ , Sam thought. _Don’t let me down._  



	6. Chapter 6

The Creature didn’t fall. The Creature fuckin’ jumped. Now the Creature has Ascended.

  
The Creature isn’t Alive. The Creature exists between. The Creature judges the living and the dead.

  
The Creature saved the Captain. The Captain is Steve Rogers.

  
The Creature doesn’t know Why. No one will tell it. But the Creature has a guess. The Creature guesses it is because _it was the best of times, it was the worst of times and in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, so shut the fuck up Stevie you’re the one with shit for eyes and shit for lungs and shit for brains and if you don’t want me to read a goddamned kids book in your sick bed you can take your sick, skinny ass down to the library and get your own so shut the hell up and stop complaining fuck you._ This means, the Creature has discovered through trials and tribulations and a train ride that ends in ice and its metal arm, I love you.

  
  
[There is no context for ‘I love you’, no parameters. ‘I love you’ does not effect the mission. ’I love you’ is irrelevant.]

  
The Creature is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. The Creature does not wish to be. James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes is a queerslutwhore. James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes is a traitor. James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes deserves to die.  The Creature will kill him if it has the chance.  
  
The Creature has not slept in 262 hours. Sleep may only be granted by its Handler.

  
[Its Handler is dead. Long live the king.]

  
The Creature has seen the Captain again and the Captain is Steve and the Captain isn’t Steve the Captain is its Handler but the Handler is dead and it cut and it cut and it _cut_ until there was nothing left but it couldn’t find Stevie no matter how deep it went.

  
The Creature is remembering.

  
Tonight, the Creature wishes to.  
  
Mission: The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith  
Directive: TERMINATE  
Mission parameters: no collateral  
  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is a doctor. The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith was its doctor. The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is a cunt.  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith lives in a large house at the end of the lane. The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is now alone. Codename The Goddamned Kids are asleep upstairs. The Creature’s target is acquired. The Creature has an eight hour window before The Goddamned Kids are no longer asleep upstairs. The Mission is go.  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is surprised to see it.  “Who are you?”

  
“Who the fuck,” the Creature asks. “Do you think. I am?”

  
“Where did you get the Asset’s tac gear?”

  
“From hell,” the Creature says. It raises a baton. Then the Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith understands.  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith wakes. The Creature is waiting.  
  
Speak. Says the Creature.  
Speak. Says the Asset.  
Speak. Says the Soldier.  
Speak. Says the Sergeant.  
Speak. Says the boy, the friend, the lover. Speak.  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith says nothing. Her trial begins.  
  
Fucking traitor. Fucking cunt. Fucking Nazi bitch. Ruth Evelina Mayer—Smith? Fucking traitor. You don’t get a name like that if your daddy’s a fucking _Baptist_. You did this to me. You know what they did to us during the war _and you did this to me._

  
  
_(There are bodies, bodies burnt and twisted, bodies turned to ash he breathes them in in the air all those souls all that pain in his nose, his mouth, the grit on his tongue between his teeth deep down in his lungs where it can never wash away)_  
_(There are badges with yellow stars)_  
_(Ovens)_  
_(Gas)_  
_(packedtogethersuffocatingincattlecars)_  
_(people)_  
_(everywhere)_  
_(dead)_  
_(dying)_

  
I bore witness. Says the Creature.  
I bore witness. Says the Asset.  
I bore witness. Says the Soldier.  
I bore witness. Says the Sergeant.  
I bore witness. Says the boy, the friend, the lover. I too bore witness.  
  
Compliance will be rewarded. Order through Pain. You know what that sounds like? Sounds a lot like Work Will Set You Free. And damn, doll, you did a number on me.  
  
I have children The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith says. Please.

The Creature doesn’t give a damn.  
  
“Please—“  
  
You gonna pull the mom card? Cause I’m somebody’s kid, fucker. I was twenty-four years old when those bastards drafted me. Twenty-six when you fuckers found me. You think I wanted to go to war? You think I ever wanted to kill anybody? You did this to somebody’s kid so don’t you dare pull the damned kid card on me. I ain’t a monster, bitch. I ain’t gonna kill your goddamned kids. No, I’m gonna do you one better, doll. I’m gonna save them. They’re gonna live. They’re gonna know. They’re gonna know every single sick fucking thing you ever did to me. You didn’t just clean me up after. You watched. But that’s not the worst part, is it? My memory, it’s fucked up unbelievable but I remember now. I remember _you._  
  
I bore witness. Says the Creature.  
I bore witness. Says the Asset.  
I bore witness. Says the Soldier.  
I bore witness. Says the Sergeant.  
I bore witness. Says the boy, the friend, the lover. I too have born witness.  
  
“Please—“  
  
I ain’t gonna rape you. I ain’t that sick. You’re a goddamned rapist and a traitor and a cunt and I’m a fucked up psycho lunatic assassin with brain damage and even I know it’s wrong. That you don’t deserve that. The fuck does that say about you?  Hell, I ain’t even gonna kill you. I gotta live with all the shit you did to me, can’t even get my own dick hard wake up pissing myself I get seizures blackouts shit myself lose track of time sometimes I can’t even speak English right remember to eat how to tie shoes hell I can’t even brush my own teeth cause I can’t stick anything in my goddamned mouth anymore between HYDRA’s cocks and rubber blocks I can’t fucking stand it. I can’t sleep, when I do half the time I wake up I don’t remember my own name and I can’t even—you programmed me to kill him, you bitch, can’t even see my own best friend—the one good thing—you took that away from me. You took _him_ away from me.  
So fuck you, Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith. Fuck you straight to hell.  
  
“Please—“  
  
Who else have you raped.  
  
“Please—“  
  
How many patients.  
  
“Please—“  
  
Order through pain.  
  
“Please—“  
  
Compliance will be rewarded.  
  
“Please—“  
  
How many more.  
  
“Please—“  
  
How many.  
  
“Please—“  
  
How. Many.  
  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith answers.  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is found guilty.  
The Woman Dr. Ruth Evelina Mayer-Smith is terminated.  
  
There is blood, blood on the Creature’s face, its hands, its clothes. There are tears on its face. There are names on its list.  
  
How, the Creature wonders, how did this happen?  
  
I bore witness. Says the Asset.  
I bore witness. Says the Soldier.  
I bore witness. Says the Sergeant.  
I bore witness. Says the boy, the friend, the lover. Now you too shall all bear witness.  
  
The Creature uploads the file.


End file.
